While Rilke has been perhaps more widely translated into English than any other modern poet, the emphasis has always been on "major works" – the "New Poems" volumes, "Duino Elegies" and "Sonnets to Orpheus". Yet Rilke produced many more poems which h...

William Barnes (1801-1886), "the Dorset Poet", wrote best in Dorest dialect: "I cannot help it. It is my mother tongue, and it is to my mind the only true speech of the life that I draw". His setting is a rural Dorset threatened by enclosure. Hopkins...

Paul Celan (1920-1970) stands as one of the greatest post-war European poets, a writer whose painful struggle with the possibilities and limitations of German, his native language, has helped to define the response of poetry in the aftermath of the H...

Ben Jonson is overshadowed as a dramatist by Shakespeare, his great contemporary. As a poet, however, he stands high. His polished urbanity, direct expression and classicism have been especially valued in modern times. T. S. Eliot says Jonson "incorp...

"...a remarkable new poetry – both modest and monumental, with something basically usable about it – not only for poets in search of a voice of their own but for the reader who turns to poetry as a last resort in trying to juggle the contradictory co...

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is best known for her novel "Oroonoko". Her plays have been revived, in print and on the stage, in modern times, but much of her best work, as she herself knew, is to be found in her poetry. The versatile form and content of he...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's reputation has sometimes been overshadowed both by the achievements of her husband, Robert Browning, and by the romantic story of their elopement. This selection recovers the best work of this independent, passionate and...

"The marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride". Wordsworth's lines on Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) contributed to a legend that became better known than Chatterton's work itself. His story is moving: a sensitive, unhappy boy, h...

One of ten poets chosen for "Anvil New Poets "3 (2001), A.B. Jackson was singled out by John Greening in Poetry Review for his "demanding and ambitious work: direct, sharp in manner, with an intellectual edge, a valedictory quality". "Fire Stations"...

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517?-1547) was known to his contemporaries as "the most accomplished gentleman of his age", noble learned and elegant. A man of his time, at the centre of the dangerous power games of the court of Henry VIII, Surrey was...